HP axes 27,000 while results disappoint

Computer giant Hewlett Packard will, as expected, put 27,000 of its people out of work while its profits for its latest financial quarter fell by a third while its revenues slipped by three percent.

The job cuts had been widely heralded and are part of a broad restructuring of the company as it gets dragged, screaming and shouting, into the second decade of the 21st century. The cuts mean HP is shedding eight percent of its toal workforce.

Although the results were, in general, none too rosy, surprisingly its PC division grew for its financial quarter, turning in revenues of $9.5 billion. HP’s software division grew by over 20 percent to $970 million on the back of its takeover of British company Autonomy. Its lucrative printer ink division showed a 10 percent decline for the quarter.

Meg Whitman, the CEO of HP, described the worldwide as economy and signaled Europe out for particular attention. The company wants to put more of its efforts into cloud computing.